


Christmas Sux

by nylipps



Category: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-16
Updated: 2019-02-16
Packaged: 2019-10-29 11:00:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,126
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17806769
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nylipps/pseuds/nylipps
Summary: Charlie and Mac are kids. They throw rocks at trains.





	Christmas Sux

7:39 pm  
December 25, 1984  
Philadelphia, PA

Charlie hated Christmas. Sure, he liked it when the Santas would come to his door to give him presents. However, as he got older, he began to feel weird about the men coming in and out of his home all day. He didn’t like the sounds that he could hear from upstairs after the men had gone up there to visit with his mom. 

He was tired of sitting alone downstairs, and the glue he’d been smelling started giving him a nasty headache, so he figured he’d go visit Mac. 

He quietly crept out of the front door, being careful to not let it creak too loudly as he closed it shut. He soon realized that he should have covered up more as it was beginning to snow lightly. He thought about it but the last thing he wanted to do was go back inside so he made his way over to Mac’s house. 

He ran up the steps, skipping every other one, and knocked on the door. After a moment, Mac’s dad opened the door. He peered right over Charlie’s head and then looked down to meet his eyes. Charlie had never liked Luther that much. He always thought his eyes were piercing right through him. It was making his headache worse. He was relieved when Luther let out a grunt and yelled for Mac to tell him his friend was over. 

Charlie’s face brightened when he heard the loud hurried thud of Mac’s boots against the ground. 

“hey, dude what’s up? Why aren’t you home? It’s Christmas!” Mac said

“Screw Christmas, lets go to the traintracks and throw rocks” Charlie crinkled his nose

“Okay, dude. I’m gonna throw those rocks so hard. Shit, it’s cold. I’m gonna grab a jacket first”

Charlie waited outside while Mac grabbed a coat. His nose was getting red and his hands were cold.  
“Alright, bro, you ready?” Mac said as he closed the door behind him.

“Hell yeah!”

“Race you to the bottom of the stairs?”

“Dude, there’s like 6 steps” Charlie said, but Mac was already jumping down, skipping every other one just like Charlie had.

Charlie rolled his eyes and followed.

“Beat you to it, dude!” Mac exclaimed

They walked down the sidewalk, sometimes pausing to pick up a sizable rock that they deemed worthy of throwing at a train.

“Why do you hate Christmas so much anyways, man? It’s like… when Jesus was born” Mac turned to look at Charlie as he was shoving another rock in the pocket of his baggy jeans’

“I dunno, dude. I like presents and all but… I dunno” he shrugged. He didn’t want to talk about the strange men giving him presents. For some reason he was worried that Mac would think it was as weird as he did. 

They continued their walk in relative silence except for Mac enthusiastically talking about how hard and how far he was going to throw his rocks.

“Dude, you’ve got like so much snow in your hair” Mac reached over and ruffled Charlie’s hair to shake some of the snow out.

Finally they were at the tracks. They sat and waited for a train to pass. They both stood up when they heard the loud sound of one coming towards them. Charlie looked over at Mac and gave him a big crooked-toothed grin.

They threw their rocks and screamed swear words as loud as they could since the train would cover their voices and no adults could chastise them for their profanity. With every rock he threw Mac made sure to add a dramatic sound effect, “Wabam! Woosh! BOOM! Oh fuck yeah! Charlie, this is so awesome, bro!”

They were so immersed in chucking rocks, they didn’t even notice how hard it had started to snow until they ran out of rocks and the train had passed.

“Dude, how are we gonna get home? It’s snowing tits out here, man” Mac said looking up at the sky.

Charlie’s hair was covered in snow and he was shivering hard, “I guess we could wait it out in that broken train” he said, motioning to an abandone cargo crate just behind a chain-link fence on the other side of the tracks.

They made their way across the tracks and crawled under a hole in the fence. When they got to the crate, Charlie found that he was just short enough to need help getting into it.

“Don’t worry, bro, I got you” Mac linked his hands together and hoisted Charlie up. Once Charlie was up he helped Mac too by grabbing his hands as he used all his force to hoist himself up next to Charlie.

Charlie’s hands were frozen from crawling on the cold ground under the fence and pulling himself up by the freezing metal of the cargo crate. He was doing his best to warm them with his breath, but Mac saw him struggling and grabbed Charlie’s hands and rubbed them in his own.

“There, dude, you okay?” Mac asked  
“Yeah man, I’m fine”

They sat at the back of the crate. Charlie scooted as close as he could to Mac to absorb his warmth. Mac felt his cheeks grow even more red from the feeling of Charlie leaning into him. He didn’t know why but he’d always felt protective of Charlie. “It’s ‘cause he’s small and I’m big so I gotta take care of him” is what he’d always say to himself. Mac wrapped an arm over Charlie’s shoulder. Then after a moment he wrapped his other arm around Charlie too.

“Thanks, dude. It’s like so cold” Charlie’s voice was muffled by Mac’s jacket

“Yeah, man. Snow is cold” Mac pulled the hood of the jacket over Charlies head to make sure the melted snow didn’t make him even colder.

Mac watched the snow fall as he felt Charlie’s breathing slow into a peaceful sleep. He looked down at his friend and hugged him closer, wouldn’t want him to get colder and wake up shivering. He placed a soft kiss on the top of Charlie’s hooded head, wouldn’t want his head to get cold either of course.

He sat there in silence, holding his best friend close for about 20 minutes until Charlie finally woke up. Thankfully the snow let up enough for them to safely find their way back home. 

“Can I go back to your house, Mac. I don’t really want to go home yet” Charlie yawned.

“Yeah, man” Mac replied. He never asked about Charlie’s home life, he was used to Charlie coming and going from his place “you’ll just have to sneak in through my window”

They walked home in silence, not even realizing they were holding hands.


End file.
